Foto de l'autor

Ritchie Calder (1906–1982)

Autor/a de The Evolution of the Machine

38+ obres 227 Membres 4 Ressenyes

Sobre l'autor

Obres de Ritchie Calder

The Evolution of the Machine (1968) 45 exemplars
Leonardo and the Age of the Eye (1970) 23 exemplars
Man and the Cosmos (1968) 21 exemplars
Science in Our Lives (1824) 18 exemplars
Our World in Space and Time (1960) 13 exemplars
Medicine and Man (1958) 10 exemplars
Men against the desert (1951) 7 exemplars
Men Against The Frozen North (1957) 6 exemplars
The life savers (1965) 5 exemplars
Carry On London 4 exemplars
Men against the jungle (1954) 4 exemplars

Obres associades

The Reader's Guide (1960) — Col·laborador — 32 exemplars
Environmental Handbook (1971) — Col·laborador — 19 exemplars
The New Scientist, 29 May 1958 (1958) — Col·laborador — 1 exemplars
The New Scientist, 26 May 1960 (1960) — Col·laborador — 1 exemplars
The New Scientist, 26 December 1957 (1957) — Col·laborador — 1 exemplars
The New Scientist, 13 June 1957 (1957) — Col·laborador — 1 exemplars

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Altres noms
Ritchie-Calder of Balmashanner, Peter Ritchie Calder, Baron
Data de naixement
1906-07-01
Data de defunció
1982-01-31
Gènere
male
Nacionalitat
Scotland
Lloc de naixement
Forfar, Angus, Scotland, UK
Lloc de defunció
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Llocs de residència
London, England, UK
Dundee, Scotland, UK
Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Professions
professor (International Relations ∙ University of Edinburgh )
author
journalist
Relacions
Calder, Nigel (son)
Calder, Angus (son)
Premis i honors
Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science (1960)
Biografia breu
His son is the writer Angus Calder.

Peter Ritchie-Calder was made a life Peer in 1966.

Membres

Ressenyes

Written as part of the author's life-long project on making science familiar to all of us, this work tells the story of humankind's quest for good health. The author, Ritchie Calder, is a science writer. Here, by unfolding the history of this quest through art and science, he shows how humans have sought to combat disease, prolong life, and enjoy robust health. He also steps in to show how, so often distracted by fear and fraud, we have been wrong. In addition to illustrations, the text contains a symbol beside each word which is included in the Glossary. [75]

Among many other propositions, this historical work of medically significant art and science validates the idea that religion owes more to disease than to divinity, and healing is the result of scientifically informed attention more than prayer. [tgk] He shows how our life history has "completely changed since Shakespeare described the Seven Ages of Man", claiming that people of all ages "can now enjoy a well-being that gives richness to living." Positive Health is not merely "an occasional respite from ailments", nor is it a derivative of magic or medicine. "Health must always rest largely with the individual--the Whole Man, in his own private world of a sound mind and a fit body." [73]

With small Index and short Glossary, unusual photographs and artwork throughout. It appears useful to outline each of the five short accessible and illustrated Chapters. I cite a few gems from each Chapter, with apologies for the stochastic appearance without the Author's words of context and connection:

With no introduction, Ch. 1 "THE MIRACLE OF MAN" begins by limning a history of human responses to illnesses that beset us. "Faced with a disaster for which he has no natural explanation, he seeks a supernatural cause." Medical lore grew up around the belief that the world swarmed with spirits that afflicted the living. Complicated rites and counter-spells needed experts: the witch doctor became prominent. The craft was not all magic. Practitioners began learning, and passing on to those who followed, how to coax the spirit of sickness out of the patient. [7] In city civilizations, rituals and accumulated knowledge became complex, and priesthoods developed. Temples were colleges with databases and recordings. Even today, modern physicians owe much to folklore, "wise women", alchemists, and priest-physicians. Quinine, and mold poultices now known to have penicillin, are examples of this debt. In what is only a small overstatement, "Bones are the only permanent records of prehistoric medicine", and of the diseases suffered. [8] Although the geography of the dead skeleton had been charted by the Middle Ages, "the skeleton within the living body did not become visible until the end of the 19th century." Wilhelm Rontgen of Wurzburg. Mummifications led to dissection, tapping barrels of wine led to percussion to diagnose conditions of the lung (Auenbrugger). Games of children scratching logs led to Laennec's invention of the stethoscope in 1816.

"The great artists of the Renaissance--Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer, Leonardo da Vinci--also produced works of art perfect in anatomical detail." [12] One of the great years in the history of medicine was 1543, when Andreas Vesalius of Brussels published the first comprehensive textbook of human anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica [On the Fabric of the Human Body]. Vesalius insisted that the body itself, not just academic texts or even Aristotle, was the proper textbook. Interestingly these artists and anatomists were actually rejecting the idea of "Miracle" and magic. Still, Calder makes the point that "medicine still makes use of primitive discoveries" [13]. In 1584, [the English pirate made Lord] Walter Raleigh, introduced curare into Europe. Surgeons employ curare derivatives with anesthetics to stope the twitching of muscles during surgical operations. In the Chinese Canon of Medicine, written about 2600 BC, he finds "All the blood of the body is under the control of the heart and flows in a circle and never stops". This is 4000 years before William Harvey. Circulation, even transfusion, is described [although Miguel Servetus' contribution is not mentioned.]

From Greek times to recent centuries, doctors believed in "the four humors." By humors they meant the body fluids that, so they thought, controlled illness and decided the types and characters of individuals. We still use adjectives derived from this ancient belief. We call a person "sanguine" if he is optimistic and cheerful. A "phlegmatic" or stolid man was one who suffered from an excess of cold, wet phlegm. [Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460 BCE–370 BCE, with a theory of "balancing" isorropíste ta chioúmor) is often credited with developing the theory of the four humors—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—and their influence on the body and its emotions.] A 17th century engraving depicts the character types corresponding to the four "mythical humors": melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic, and sanguine. Calder calls the pea-sized pituitary the leader of the "Gland Orchestra", the Endocrine system. "There are few aspects of human existence that do not in some way concern the glands." [16]

Illustrations convey something of the immense complexity of the central nervous system and the brain which sorts out the diversity of impressions that pour into it. [18] Caldwell distinguishes the voluntary and the involuntary, as well as the conditioned and autonomic impulses. After Luigi Galvani showed that the leg muscles of a dead frog contract as a result of electrical stimulation, by the 18th century, doctors began to understand the electrical basis of the nervous system. It took the pioneers of general anesthesia to explore the chemicals which also act on the nerves. Crawford Long -- ether; Horace Wells -- nitrous oxide; William Morton--ether; J.Y. Simpson -- chloroform, illustrated by a drawing of dinner party guests fallen asleep.

Calder distinguishes the terms "brain" and "mind" and turns to the interplay between them. He again credits the witch doctors and priest-physicians with understanding that spells and incantations succeeded in driving out certain diseases. [20] Sigmund Freud went to the famous Paris hospital of La Salpetriere and was impressed by Charcot's experiments with hypnosis, and concluded that some mental processes take place "behind human consciousness". Description and photographs of Pavlov, the physiologist (1849-1936), and his dog famous for demonstrating a "conditioned reflex", is included. The word "psychosomatic" reminds us that "the Whole Man [sic] is not just a skeleton, with muscles, organs, nerves, brain, and mind, but a complex entity in which all these parts interact to produce a human personality." [21]

"Like all other living things, human beings not only exist, they also reproduce; and it is extraordinary that mankind took so long to reach any real understanding of the process." [21 brilliant observation.] 2300 years ago Aristotle studied the development of the chick within the egg. Yet the understanding of how the fertilized egg developed was not reached until the 17th century. Fully 200 years later, Karl Ernst von Baer of Estonia discovered ova, the egg-cell, in the female mammal. [23] Gregor Mendel, an abbot with a hobby of growing peas in a garden in Czechoslovakia, opened up the whole complex science of genetics, which explains family resemblances. The phrase "blood is thicker than water" long misled us. Not until 1875, when Oskar Hertwig made the discovery, was it known that in fertilization the sperm enters the ovum and a new creature begins taking shape. [23] A human child and Mendel's peas are subject to the same "laws of heredity" dictated by genes packaged together as "chromosomes".

"Engineers continue to learn from medical scientists, who in turn are helped by the engineers." [27] Indeed, "the only senses we have not successfully imitated are those of taste and smell; and there are as yet no machines possessing the human powers of imagination, will, and judgement." [27]

Chapter 2 "THE DEVILS OF DISEASE." Leads with an 1841 engraving of an American Indian witch doctor holding his "magic" drum and feathered stick. Often, the witch doctor is the most powerful figure in a society. Few creatures live in isolation, and humans drew upon collective experiences shared across space and time. Rituals of healing developed, and since "mind and body interact", rituals which win the confidence of the patient, "are often remarkably effective". [30] Herodotus, the Greek historian who visited Babylon in the fifth century BC wrote: "They bring their sick into the marketplace then those who pass by the sick person confer with him about his disease and discover whether they have ever been afflicted with the same disease and advise him of the treatment by which they or others have been cured." Caldwell provides details of the Babylonian medical services provided by priest-physician specialists, or ashipu. We study the clay tablets upon which they wrote their shrewd prescriptions, and the Code of Hammurabi, dating from about 2000 BC regulated the doctors. [32]

Ancient Greece merged magic and medicine, and mythology into clinical practice. Apollo, god of elements whose arrows spread disease, had an earthborn son, Aesculapius, who studied medicine under Chiron the centaur. Aesculapius save so many lives, Pluto the god of the underworld, complained to Zeus that his kingdom was being diminished. Zeus obligingly killed Aesculapius with a thunderbolt, but transformed him into a god. [Son of woman, redeemer of Man, killed but to rise again as a god. 32]

Imhotep, in ancient Egypt was also a human who came to be regarded as a god, as were three of his children:
Telesphorus (convalescence), Hygeia (hygiene), Panacea (herbalist, "cure-all"). Temples set up by worshipers of Aesculapius were built in peaceful wooded groves. Patients who were cured would express gratitude on tablets we find to this day. These tablets were once shown to the suffering to inspire confidence. Treatment included diets, massage, mineral baths, rest, and dream analysis. Snakes and dogs would lick the sore places. [32] Philosophy gradually supplanted superstition -- Pythagoras taught that number was the basis of all things. Empedocles taught that man was composed of four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Hippocrates insisted that treatment be based on careful bedside observation, and his Oath proposed in the 5th century BC is still in use. Roman administrators called upon Greek physicians. In AD 170, when Marcus Aurelius fell ill, he called upon Galen, whose shrewd written observations of afflictions remained authoritative for over 1400 years until Vesalius began to question things.

Mention is made of the "landmark in the history of medicine" with the "founding of Christendom's [sic] first medical school at Salerno, in southern Italy.[33] According to tradition, in the 4th century AD, it was founded by "Four Masters"--Pontus, a Greek; Adala, an Arab; Salernus, a Latin; and Elinus, a Jew. Students of all traditions, races, and women as well as men, worked together. Chinese medical practice based on observation dates back to 2600 BC with the "Canon of Medicine". [34] In Persia, the Magi used herbs to fight disease-demons, or drogues, from which we derived the word "drugs". India also contributed to this stream of knowledge, in the "Rig Veda", dating from 1500 BC, and by 300 BC, large hospitals were in existence, performing surgeries. Indian doctors learned that mosquitoes carried malaria and rats the plague. Contributions of Rhazes and Avicenna.

Then a Dark Age, and eight centuries of forgetting. The teachings of Hippocrates, Vesalius and Avicenna, concerning disease was disregarded, and disease was considered a divine punishment or the work of devils. Demons had to be driven out with prayer, pilgrimage, saints, and even "dancing mania" in which people died in a frenzy. [36] In the 14th century, when Black Death killed a quarter of the population of Europe, scapegoats were massacred. Flagellants scourged themselves and each other in processions.

Paracelsus, "born when Columbus discovered the New World [sic], stands like a Colossus astride the two worlds of superstition and science." [38] Born Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, his middle name gives us the word "bombastic"--indeed he was loud-mouthed and self-important. He was appointed lecturer in medicine at the University of Basel, and defied traditions, transforming the occult practices into sciences, while still conjuring as a showman. He felt that the more impressed the patient was, the more likely a rational prescription would work. "Medicine is not merely a science but an at...The character of the physician may act more powerfully upon the patient than all the drugs." [38]

In the century after Paracelsus, doctors were beginning to suspect that supposed "demons" were actually natural causes. Plague doctors filled the beaks of their grotesque bird-like masks with spices to purify the air they inhaled. Antony van Leeuwenhoek, born 1632, made "flea-glasses" or lenses for viewing a new world of "little animals". These turn out to have been "the true demons of disease". "In 1812, during his unsuccessful Moscow campaign, Napoleon lost more than 90% of his half million strong Grande Armee, most of them dying of typhus dysentery or enteric fever

Chapter 3. "DEATH TO THE DEMONS".
… (més)
1 vota
Marcat
keylawk | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Oct 7, 2022 |
Fair copy in Good DJ. Ex Lib. FFEP torn out
 
Marcat
Hawken04 | Nov 17, 2012 |

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Obres
38
També de
6
Membres
227
Popularitat
#99,086
Valoració
3.0
Ressenyes
4
ISBN
16
Llengües
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